


Frankenstein's Monster

by mr-finch (soubriquet)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Body Horror, Choking, God this is shit, Gore, M/M, Mild Noncon, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 21:17:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3090200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soubriquet/pseuds/mr-finch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You di'n't have to play with it," Daryl says, the toe of his boot sinking into the mess of the corpse, "Was already dead."</p><p>"We're gonna survive this thing, and we're gonna do it by being bigger monsters than they are! You understand? There ain't no rules anymore! There ain't no philosophy, there ain't no grace, there ain't no mercy, there's only us and them, and all they wanna do is EAT our ass! So we're gonna fucking eat THEM! We're gonna chew 'em up and spit em' out, and we're gonna survive this thing or I will blow a hole through this whole fucked-up world! You follow me? You FOLLOW ME?"<br/>― Philip Blake, <i>Rise of the Governor</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Frankenstein's Monster

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a prompt for [Liz](http://mizliz.tumblr.com) and ended here. Daryl/Governor - "That is one hell of a mess."

"You di'n't have to play with it," Daryl says, the toe of his boot sinking into the mess of the corpse, "Was already dead."

"That what they say?" his companion says, wiping his knife on the grass and getting to his feet.

Daryl sees the - there isn't a word for it, but there should be by now - walker dirt - bits of flesh, blue and pink, mixed with rotting drool that clings to you the way blood shouldn't, stuck to the Governor's hands. He looks away. There are miles ahead of them and he won't get very far making a fuss about this one.

-

"If y'all'd just  _shut up_  they wouldn't  _hear_  us!"

A hand to the back of his head shoves Daryl down, giving him a face full of leaves. He spits them out, mad, and still breathing hard with the need to survive. There are hungry walkers out here, and he had forgotten how much noise other people made.

Daryl turns around, still crouched on the ground, like his companion, and points down to the low twiggy branches -  _don't touch those -_ the crisper, dead leaves -  _don't walk on those -_ the sound of walkers up ahead, behind, and around them -  _don't fucking move._

-

"There's people."

"They're  _strangers._ "

"They look lost. Vulnerable."

"People don't look that way anymore."

"We could talk to them, see what they need. Build us a shelter together."

"Why? So they can kill us too? So you can make yourself a  _society?_ "

-

"We could take what they have and run."

-

_"Shhhh. Shhhhhhh!"_

It's leaves again. Always leaves.

Further away, closer than he thought, the walker lurches on, grunting and snarling. They can see it move through the trees.

"Have you ever thought about-" is the furthest the Governor gets, that close to his ear, before Daryl lurches away and puts his fist straight into the mud.

The walker snarls.

The Governor is right next to him. Not like before, not crouched playing a game he's not familiar with. No, this time he looks  _alive._

"Daryl," he says, "It's gone."

Daryl bares his teeth at him. "Shut up."

-

He wakes up tired, but really sleeping is like waking nowadays. Daryl can't remember what it was like to have a full night's sleep, or even what would count as a full night's sleep, since he was- since he was--

The Governor has a small animal roasting on a spit over the fire. It's well-made, the critter's skinned. It's cooked like shit but it'll taste good.

"Here," his companion says, and offers him the spit.

Daryl takes it eventually and meets the Governor's eyes, trying to figure out if there's an answer lying in those dark, dark depths as to whether he will ever be able to sleep again.

-

The longer they walk, talk and eat together, the stronger Daryl's mistrust grows, and the more vibrant the Governor becomes.

He looked happy raising that town, and building that army -- everything that was taken from him when he lost the battle. He looks the same way now, only, up close, Daryl can see how it affects him: how he walks so calm and sits so still but his eyes are dark with it and his hands are slow.

He wants to ask him  _why didn't you kill me_ but also he really, really doesn't.

When he startles awake one night -- asleep, he was asleep -- he finds the Governor on watch and listening intently to deeper sounds in the underbrush. Daryl watches him for a full minute, observing the rise and fall of his shoulders, the slight glint of moonlight in the whites of his eyes, the barely-felt breeze shucking the longer ends of his hair back, back, back.

He almost asks him something that he forgets immediately on making a sound, and it turns into a cough, the kind that catches your breath and stuffs it back down into your throat.

The Governor turns to look at him, the rise and fall of his shoulders unaffected in any way. He asks him something totally unrelated. "Do you hear that?"

Daryl listens, but cannot hear any signs of life. He had been listening from the moment he woke up. "What?" 

His companion takes in a breath, then sighs deeply. "Nothing," he says, like it's an answer. He looks out past Daryl. "Absolutely nothing."

For some crawling, insane reason, Daryl is glad that they haven't heard a walker tonight, or the night before that. Quiet nights like this one seem to clear the Governor's head of its-- seem to clear his head, taking away some of the madness that grips him when their lives are in peril.

"Good," Daryl grunts, and lies back down. For once, he sleeps like the dead.

-

He dreams that they are in the woods and an animal has broken his bow. He is trying to kill it with his arrows but it won't let him alone, it won't let him alone.

-

The next day, they run into a herd and the Governor takes out ten of them. He has an axe that came straight out of a fire department and what he doesn't skewer on the sharp end gets a hole in its head from the blunt.

That night, the fever's still in him. He's pacing, moving round and round the bit of grass they've made camp in. Daryl's half-expecting him to step over the can-rigged wires and stride off into the night.

In the morning, he can tell he hasn't slept.

-

"That is one hell of a mess," the Governor laughs, kicking the walker over onto itself. It folds the way a body shouldn't fold over, its spine on view, its intestines scooped and hollowed. The walker reaches for him anyway, greasy arms outstretched. It wants him.

 _Don't get too close,_ Daryl wants to say, but doesn't.

The Governor looks at him anyway. It's just as Daryl thought: the more of them he kills, the more he seems to grow, even in his senses, beyond where he should be able to grow. It's like the walker, stuck to the floor and bending over and over again.

"Nothin'," Daryl shoves out, and looks away.

"You want to see me try something?" his companion asks, and the coals of anger that had lain dormant in Daryl's belly since the attack on the prison begin to burn, begin to swell and crack again.

"See you try  _what?"_

He hears a snapping sound from behind him, and then he looks and the Governor has broken off the walker's head, is bringing it closer and closer. Daryl backs away fast.

The walker snaps at him, still alive, its wild eyes rolling in its skull. Its jaws clack together and the Governor holds it a moment longer, before throwing it into the verge.

"It's not a monster, Daryl."

-

They find a house just as dark is falling, half-running through the dusk. Daryl has his crossbow in his hands and the Governor has his axe. They dispatch walkers and biters lingering around the side of the house, then reach the front door.

It swings open at a touch.

Daryl goes in second place, crossbow up, covering the left as the Governor walks calmly through the hall, axe by his side.

Something wails from the kitchen, dead ahead of them, and then a chorus of snarls start up, one building upon one after another.

 _"Yo,"_  Daryl hisses, but the man shows no sign of hearing him.

One more step and a shadow falls across the open kitchen door. The Governor raises his axe.

 _"Yo, let's_  go."

The Governor strides on, nonplussed, and a dead, drawn face looms through the door -- then it's on the floor, head cut straight from its neck.

Another goes down, then another, and five more take their place. They're almost roaring now, fighting each other to get through the door first.

Daryl seizes the Governor's shoulder and wrenches him back, throwing him off balance. Philip gives him a wild, furious look as he stumbles, then glances back at the hoard of walkers flowing towards them, and turns tail. He and Daryl race out of the house, Daryl's hand still gripped on the shoulder of his coat.

There are more outside, but scattered, and Daryl takes some down on the move, ushering them along all the time. They head out onto the road and go for the woods, hearing more groans and screeches join them from the road.

Nigh-on flying now, they crash through the undergrowth, stumbling on decaying leaves, narrowly avoiding low branches and thick black tree trunks that appear out of nowhere. All the time, the noise behind them follows.

They run until they can't breathe, until Daryl's throat feels like he's gasping blood, and when his crossbow gets caught on a tree limb and he stops to get it off, Philip pushes him to the ground.

They've made up some time on the walkers, but he can still hear them in the distance and he knows they can see better than the living in the dark. They can  _smell_ them.

The two of them listen as the walkers lurch past.

The Governor doesn't say  _we can take them_  or laugh at them this time. All Daryl can hear is the two of them breathing and the movement of the walkers around them; the rustle of leaves, the twigs stamped under the dead. Hungry, stinking bodies hunt them, and their cover is abysmal.

There's a tap on his shoulder and Daryl twitches, before confirming that the hand's owner is alive. The Governor holds his finger to his lips.

When he sees Daryl looking, he points to the right of them.  _Bank over there,_  he mouthes, only just whispering it.  _"Cover."_

Daryl glances over there himself, but the moon doesn't go far through these trees and he isn't close enough to see it for sure. He turns his head.  _Sure?_

The Governor nods, and flicks his fingers towards it in the universal signal for  _let's go._ _  
_

They're already crouched low to the ground, and they stay that way as the Governor leads them a few feet to the right. It takes time. They have to be quiet.

When his companion stops, Daryl hears it. A single walker has broken off from the rest and is wandering closer. Problem is, it's coming straight towards them.

The Governor looks round at him, prepping the crossbow, and draws his knife. With no warning, he shoves Daryl sideways and throws himself on the walker. Daryl sees only a flash of moonlight on the blade before he's falling down the slope of the bank, bow clutched to his chest and knees skidding on the mud. 

He comes to rest with bloody skin at the edge of water, next to an alcove in the bank itself. He throws himself at it back-first, then breaks out and spins around, crossbow raised and aiming back up the hill.

Nothing.

After a minute, a figure appears in the gloom, only visible if you were looking for one. It spots Daryl and comes down the bank towards him, haphazard and lurching.

Daryl has his finger on the trigger when the Governor's coat comes into view, and doesn't know why he still hasn't pulled it when Philip grabs him by his jacket and spins him around, shoving him back into the bank. His feet splash them both in the shallow water.

The Governor's hands are wet with walker juice, Daryl thinks, as they wrap around his throat, bending him back, arching him into the grass. He drops his crossbow with a clatter.

It would be easier if he were angry with him. If there was rage in his voice at all. If the Governor was even speaking.

-

_"Ya gonna kill me?" his da rages, his thumbs and fingers digging deeper into Daryl's neck._

-

Daryl struggles with it, clutching at the Governor's wrists, before he draws a fist back-- but before it can connect, the Governor lets go and twists him around, forcing his face against the muddy ground. A walker snarls somewhere in the trees.

"Y'all been waitin to do this this whole time," Daryl says, his mouth full of grass. He lifts his head up and spits, fighting the pressure on his back, holding him there. "So get the fuck  _on_  with it."

-

When he's released, he falls to the ground, palms clutching rocks. The Governor finds the alcove and grabs him by the back of his neck, dragging him over there.

He kneels down next to him in the grass and Daryl can't see his face, can't see what he's thinking, what his eyes look like.

But he can guess, and guessing keeps him still. It keeps him from moving in the night. The Governor kneels there for a while and then slumps to one side, going to sleep in the shadow of the alcove.

Daryl doesn't. Daryl doesn't know when he's ever going to sleep. Daryl looks at his hands.

-

He stands up roughly before dawn, stealing over to his crossbow and leaving what made for their camp that night.

Daryl may not have much else, but he has no intention of going back. He survived before on his own and he will again. He doesn't need someone with him, especially not  _that_ _._ He doesn't even know why he stayed so long.

The town is emptier now. Dead residents left with the stampede to find their prey, others are still trapped in their buildings or wandering the outskirts. Maybe a few will wander over to keep the Governor busy. In a weird, stomach-twisting way, Daryl hopes not.

He knows that they will only make him worse. That any he kills will make him stronger. That the higher the likelihood he will die, the greater his reward.

In a world that's crumbling like this one, maybe that's the only way to survive.

Daryl hitches the crossbow over his shoulder and walks to the middle of the road, scanning the dust for tracks of people that might have passed by here. They can't be the only ones who made it.


End file.
